


and your smile, after all this

by RoundedLoaf



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, The Lonely Decade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23907496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoundedLoaf/pseuds/RoundedLoaf
Summary: When Lucretia wakes from Wonderland, Maureen is there to hold her.
Relationships: The Director | Lucretia/Maureen Miller
Kudos: 10





	and your smile, after all this

Lucretia wakes slowly to a dark room. Her side stings, and she can barely make out pinpricks of light. She tries to clear her vision, to see where she is and why but her eyes drift shut and she sinks deep into the softness of the bed.

The next time she wakes with a scream. The sword hits her side again. Cam’s body disintegrates beneath him. She presses forsake. Claws slash from nowhere. A memory she can’t get back. Cam’s legs and arms. She presses forsake. Life sucked out of her body. She betrays her friend. The -

“Lucretia.” A worried voice pierces her thoughts. She feels a firm hand on her shoulder. The hand moves to cradle her cheek. It’s soft and the voice familiar.

“Lucretia, it’s okay.” The voice says, and she can hear it now low and comforting,  _ Maureen _ . “You’re safe. We’re up in the air, miles above anything that could hurt you. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Lucretia’s eyes open to a bright room and Maureen’s smiling face in front of her. She got out. She didn’t succeed, but she’s safe now. She’ll go back when the time is right

“I got out.” She says, relief coursing through the words, her mouth rising up and then all of a sudden dropping down, as she remembers what she did to get here. “Maureen, how did you find me?”

“Davenport got agitated a few hours after you left. You said not to follow but I tracked your stone of farspeech. Or I tried to! You were entirely off the map for a week. I thought you were dead!

“When the signal came back on I raced the base towards you.” Maureen continues. “Made sure Lucas was tucked away somewhere he couldn’t mess with the controls and dropped down to the surface. I couldn’t tell if it was you at first, your clothes were ripped and well, you looked so much older. But you were gripping your staff so tight and I always thought your eyes were too old for your body. I knew it was  _ you _ . I got you back here into the infirmary, and drove the base as far away as it would go.”

Lucretia tries to sit up, but the stitches in her side scream at her. She winces at the pain. “T-thank you.” She says.

Maureen shifts her hand to Lucretia’s hair. They spend a moment resting in each other’s eyes.

“So,” Maureen says, all cool and collected, like rescuing women from their doom is a casual pastime, “is this your real face?”

Lucretia can feel herself recoil. Though she can feel the additional weariness of age in her body, she barely caught glimpses of how it changed her face.

“You don’t need to answer right away.” Maureen says quickly, “You don’t need to answer at all.” She shifts her spare hand to hold Lucretia’s. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Sorry,” Lucretia says. “I- “ She’s thinking now. Considering all the possible stories she could tell. Her eyes scan the room. She recognises it as the infirmary in Maureen’s skybase, but Maureen has moved a few more of her robots in. The walls are white, with a large window looking off into the night. Maureen stands next to a small blue chair.

When Lucretia had first met Maureen she had not been expecting anything. A brief chat had turned into correspondence, book recommendations, and discussions of the planar system. Maureen would send her sketches of robots she hoped to build. Lucretia would write her stories of who those robots could be, and of robots with souls that she had met.

When she realised what she and her family had done, Lucretia stopped replying.

Lucretia thinks of this now. Thinks of the half-truths she has told Maureen, the lies of permanent omission, the erasure of Maureen’s family and their attempts at heroic deaths. (Lucretia has learnt that death is only heroic in a retelling.) She thinks of the way Maureen made her laugh and how after everything started to go wrong, and Lucretia tried to show up as a stranger on her doorstep offering peeks at impossible technology in exchange help. Of how Maureen had remembered her and laughed and said: “Oh, Lucy, you could have just asked me on a date”.

“I’m afraid,” Lucretia says. “I haven’t been entirely truthful.”

Maureen has one of those smiles that look destined to be a laugh. Like is doesn’t matter what Lucretia says next, that she'll still be here. Lucretia wonders if she’ll ever see that look again.

“And I can’t tell you the truth right now, I physically cannot tell you, but I promise you, Maureen. I can explain everything.”

“Darling,” Maureen says. “Assuming Lucas doesn’t break the base, I can wait as long as you need.”

* * *

It takes Lucretia two days to be well enough to get back to the Starblaster again. Two days of her decision gnawing at her heart.

Davenport comes to visit her, bounding into the room. He manages a few words that aren’t his name now and again. Occasionally she imagines a glance that looks almost like worry.

Lucas sulks at the entrance to the infirmary. He doesn’t know, but the school he used to go to was destroyed in the relic wars. A beautiful old place, near Neverwinter. She had considered posting Barry as a teacher there.

In parts, she tells Maureen the things she can. That she travelled for many years. That Davenport wasn’t just her ward. When she tries to say Captain the phrase turns to static. That this look isn’t her real age, but neither was the one before. Maureen laughs when Lucretia calms and replies “Both looks do it for me”.

Sometimes she forgets that while Maureen can remember  _ her _ , not all the stories they shared were so lucky.

(Sometimes she catches the look that Maureen tries to hide from her. The one that says she suspects more than she’s letting on, that the holes in her own life are becoming more apparent. The one that says that as much as she cares about Lucretia, she’s worried.)

Lucretia intends to go to the Starblaster alone. Retrieve some of the voidfish ichor and give it to Maureen. However, Lucretia is still recovering and this isn’t something she can put off for longer. They go together.

It’s not well thought out process like it could be in the future. Lucretia’s books lay in piles in the floor. She has to clean an old coffee cup, stand on a footstool and scoop the ichor from the top of the tank. The cup says ‘Worlds Best Captain’ on it. Lucretia only notices that when Maureen starts to drink.

When Maureen drinks, she stands tall for a moment, and then collapses inwards, still standing. Lucretia sits them both down on her bed, takes one of Maureen’s hands in hers and tries to explain. A part of her wishes she had done this in static if only so she wouldn’t have to see the pain clear of Maureen’s face and keep talking.

“I have to check on Lucas.” Maureen will say once Lucretia’s done, and for that moment she won’t be able to look Lucretia in the eye.

But you don’t become the sole surviving member of the Miller legacy without learning how to keep inventing. If Maureen keeps her son closer after this, stares more deeply into the plane of thought, holds the woman she loves tighter and tells her that they cannot do this alone, then perhaps the world would be a better place for it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired in part by [ why do you imagine golden birds? by bruised fruit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497288/chapters/56343559), and more specifically the brief conversation we have in the comments. Especially the use of the phrase 'half-truths' was inspired by this.
> 
> This was also inspired by [this prompt ](https://whumpster-dumpster.tumblr.com/post/180213828467/character-a-waking-up-in-a-hospital-room-aching), because originality is a lie.


End file.
